


Foxy to Me

by gloss



Series: Range Life [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Earth, Homophobia, M/M, Skateboarding, aka not!fic, instafic, pride prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 21:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7070017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe's a pro skateboarder. And our society sucks (at least until Finn rolls into his life).</p><p><b>Please note</b> that this fic contains racist and homophobic language and attitudes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foxy to Me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking [prompts for Pride](http://spaceoperafeerie.tumblr.com/post/145281785609/pride-prompts) on Tumblr; beautifullights asked for Poe dealing with a homophobic environment before meeting Finn. 
> 
> This seemed like a good way to start the weirdo skateboarding AU I want to do.
> 
> Thanks to GGFM and coffeeinallcaps for handholding/idea-bouncing.

It's depressing to think about - or maybe it's comforting, he goes back and forth - but Poe probably still would've gotten harassed - faggot! Suck dick eat ass 24/7! Bend over, Dameron, Daddy's coming home \- even if he hadn't been...what he was. Who he is. 

_Everybody_ gets this shit. It's one of the primary ways for guys to sort and select and exile, let everyone know who's where and why. He gets called taco-eater and wetback, too. All skaters get the faggot shit from jocks and norms, cops and dads, and then some (most - no, _all_ ) skaters give it to others. If you're better-looking or _slightly_ less of a dirtbag, you're in for it. Hell, he heard some assholes, in person and on various dumbass messageboards, call Lando a cocksucker when he got an invite to the ESPYs. _Because he wore a tux_.

People like to say guys don't notice much, that they say even less. There are whole sitcom franchises built on that truth. But it's not exactly true, not in Poe's experience. Guys notice _everything_ , they just don't bother to find the words most of the time. Instead, they chew on those feelings and observations, tuck them in their cheeks, suck and gnaw until the ideas melt down into pulp and become a part of them. 

So everyone's always said Poe's good-looking - he doesn't see it, most of the time. He has annoying hair, caveman brow, and the biggest schnozz this side of Fyvush Finkel, but he can also clean up pretty nice when necessary. Handsomeness, however defined, seems to lead automatically to accusations of various (highly detailed) homosexual predilections and (exceptionally prolific) activity.

By the time he was 23, he'd sucked exactly three dicks in his life. But to hear the dudes tell it, he and all his fellows (there are apparently legions of fags? Yet he never seemed to meet very many at all) are daisy-chained together _all the time_ in a surging sea of come and lube, born aloft on the groans of men.

Basically, the straight dudes know (imagine) way more about faggotry than Poe ever managed to gather on his own from first-hand experience. They talk about it, yell about it, grab each other's nuts and twist as they joke about it, pants each other, sleep in sweaty heaps together like a fine-art photograph, still snorting drunkenly about 69ing and ass-poundings.

Given all that, how ubiquitous this bullshit is, and irresistible, he just...went with it. Price of living and working with mostly guys, he figured, in close quarters like vans and skateparks and communal houses. He didn't protest - not just because that would be a lie, but because objecting would have ensured _more_ attention, greater observation, keener focus on him. 

Who knew where his eyes _did_ stray, after all? Maybe they were right, maybe some part of him was always on the prowl.

He's pretty sure that's wrong, but when he was younger, he wasn't nearly so certain. Everyone else seemed to know so much about what he wanted and thought about and was capable of. As he got older, he tuned out most of the bullshit. It was the best he could do - ignore that and concentrate instead on getting his lines down, doing his PT, not fucking up the incredibly fragile alchemy of money and merch and trips that keeps him barely afloat.

That's the thing, right? It's not as if he has any other skills, anything that makes him remotely employable. He'd dropped out of eleventh grade (later, he did do a GED but Statura took the online test for him). He didn't _want_ to do anything else, anyway. All he'd ever done or wanted to do was skate.

If he fucked _this_ up, he'd be on Skid Row in less than a month.

When he broke both ankles and a tibia at 27, he was laid up for several months. He missed the team tour of China and three or four exhibitions and a Vans street competition. He was _out of his mind_. 

His physiotherapist Karé took him dancing - well, propped him up with his fucking crutches against the bar while she and her friends danced. It was a queer bar, and she just _smirked_ at him when he finally noticed, like of course he belonged here. Like she'd say on the treadmill or during water therapy: _get with the program, Dameron, **babies** can do this_. He met Iolo that night, and there was no epiphany, no grand declaration, but there was a weekend, then a couple months, of making out and fooling around when they could. It was _good_. Iolo was normal but not a jackass; he hadn't paid attention to skating since the first Tony Hawk game. 

People just _did_ this, Poe learned. Hooked up, saw whether it'd work, stayed friends (or didn't - Karé has a policy of pretending all her exes were swallowed by a multidimensional sinkhole, which is awkward when they run into each other, as they do, almost every weekend). Stopped keeping their eyes down, learned to let fingertips brush the back of your wrist or lips your ear, stayed in their skins and didn't fucking tune out.

Iolo had gone to a couple parties with him - some vid screenings, a housewarming, one just because one of the guys on Death Wish found a life-size Rocketeer plaster statue and wanted to celebrate. Taking another dude to these things wasn't all that unusual, but Poe found himself - if not quite avoiding Iolo, at least ducking his proximity more than half the time.

When he was healed up, it was over between them.

"Your life is weird, buddy," Iolo told him when they broke up. If they'd been together, this was the break-up. Poe is, to this day, still unclear about that.

"My life's just...life," Poe'd said, and believed every word of it. He still (sort of) does.

"Overgrown teenage hormone cases in a collective, persistent gay panic," Iolo said. "It's fucking exhausting."

"But not exhaustive fucking, more's the pity," Poe replied and at least Iolo smiled at that.

So that sucked. But maybe the whole shattered bones and gay exploration phase loosened something up, or let him glimpse other, looser ways to be, because when he was back on the board, he was _better_ at it. He took sharper edges, tried more complicated lines, let himself flow right through everything. Lando bumped him up in terms of minutes allotted on the next vid, a couple magazines did pieces on his renaissance, it was good.

He'd always known Statura by sight, enough to fist-bump in passing, maybe buy a beer if they found themselves standing next to each other at a party. It wasn't anything more than that general bro-ship he had with just about everyone, until one day when they literally bumped into each other in Lando's corporate offices. 

Statura was basically retired from skating. He was doing something with photography with Leia; Poe didn't really know, it was about cameras and shit. Some guys played music, some drew, some did photography. Poe'd always been half-envious, half-befuddled by that kind of split focus. Why _not_ think about skating all the time? The fuck was wrong with them?

But there Statura was, a lot more silver in his hair, looking chill and loose and - it was weird, Poe was in his thirties now, shouldn't he be able to say "handsome" or "hot" without this stuttering hesitation inside his own stupid brain?

"Looking good," Poe said and Statura didn't smile so much as _radiate_ , like he was happy to see him and happier to hear a compliment. So that was interesting, too, the way it made Poe feel at ease but also hot prickled all over like the start of a sunburn (and Poe doesn't _get_ sunburned, not since that one time in Australia when anyone would've burned to a crisp), leaning forward a little, scuffing the toe of one busted-up sneaker into the carpet.

"Right back at you," Statura said, his voice hoarser than Poe remembered it being, kind of scratchy, enough that you wanted to lean in closer to hear, and they went for a drink and fish tacos and by the end of the afternoon, Poe was in his lap in the back of Statura's old diesel Volvo, pushing his hands through all that silver and thinking about his own and how he kept plucking them out, every single morning.

"The great Dameron," Statura said on the drive back to Long Beach, one hand on the wheel, the other on Poe's thigh. The sun was finally setting and the freeway looked like everything'd been dipped in copper. "Finally easing open that closet door, it's a bona-fucking-fide miracle."

"The fuck?" Poe asked but Statura just shook his head, squeezed Poe's thigh, and asked which exit.

Maybe everyone did know, always had known, and he was the dumbass who thought he could get away with it. (Get away with _what_ , exactly, he also didn't know). Poe didn't know, didn't want to know. Couldn't change the past, couldn't do anything but flow forward, and on and on.

He shacked up with Statura for almost two years. Took the GED (well, the courses), learned what to do with a 35mm rangefinder and his way around a darkroom, figured out how to deepthroat (and, more, how much he _liked_ that), stopped plucking out the gray.

When they broke up, it was unmistakable. Rumors were always around, but this time someone's Flickr account got found, there was a picture of Poe and Statura under some cheesy mistletoe at a stupid fucking "Winter Solstice" party that Statura's sister threw, and that was it.

Poe moved out, into an apartment over the garage of the house that some of the younger guys shared off Echo Park. Statura left a lot of mean, curt messages on his voicemail; Poe's a coward, an asshole, the world's biggest dickhead, good luck with hiding and lying for the rest of your pathetic life. Good stuff. Leia came over with curtains and new sheets in her bag - I know you didn't think of this, and she was right, he'd been sacking out on the bare mattress with someone's old sleeping bag on top - and a sad, not-quite-disapproving look in her eyes.

"I'm fine," Poe said. He didn't have much furniture, just whatever was already in the place, so he was crouching on an old Army footlocker while Leia sat in the one chair.

She smoothed down the hem of her loose, hippie-embroidery shirt and shook her head. "Of course you are, you always are."

He pointed at the little half-size bar fridge. "Even have food other than beer, so. You know. Living large here."

She nodded and, though he got the sense she didn't believe him, didn't say anything else. "I have an errand for you, if you wouldn't mind."

Though he hoped it was something to do with her brother, it was just going up to somewhere near San Jose to get old Betamax tapes and film negatives from Lor San Tekka, who lived decidedly off the grid now and never had trusted the mail anyway. 

He got a per diem, which was pretty sweet, and use of a car, so Poe was on the road in a few hours. He proceeds to get lost, just spectacularly so, and ends up in some dead-end subdivision overwhelmed by malls as big as old military bases and bomber hangars. He's only had Fritos and half a 2-litre bottle of Mountain Dew for as long as he can recall, so he pulls into one mall and lets his nose lead him toward the food court.

Right through, for fuck's sake, _this_ is his luck now, first macking photos all over the internet to prove what a faggot he is and now Kylo fucking Ren with an MTV crew outside the Zumiez to show all the younguns what shredding is.

And some snotnose kid careening toward him fakie, setting up a heelflip, and Poe's frozen - the dude's built, filling out that ugly branded shirt and snugger-than-snug cords _nicely_ , and the way he holds his body is lovely, just all shiny sweat, flowing ribbony loops through the air, reminiscent of no one so much as Leia at her height, ballet on maple, his dark skin the only vital thing in this horror show of chrome and glass, so Poe gets knocked the fuck over, of course he does, right on top of his extra-large Orange Julius, and the kid lands on top of him, heavy and warm, neck to ass, while the deck skitters away.

"Shit," kid says, face right against Poe's, then he pushes himself up on one hand. "Fuck, I'm sorry --"

He's better looking from the front and the Orange Julius is riding cold and achey atop a flush spilling _all the way_ down Poe's front and up his dick, and --. "Fuck."

"You're Poe Dameron," the kid says, big brown eyes widening, and Poe steels himself for something like he's been getting for weeks (years, decades) now: look it's the spic fag, let's all have a poke. "Holy shit, I fucking _love_ you."

It takes Poe approximately - no, _exactly_ , let's be honest here - twelve days to say it back. By that time, Finn has left/been fired from Ren's creepy-ass reality-show bullshit and he's starting again on Leia's flow team. And he's just _here_ , on the bed they still haven't made, opening his arms and pressing his mouth to Poe's neck like it's the most natural thing in the world, because it is, because he wants to be, _wants Poe_ , rolls him over until they're on their sides and everything smells like sweat and menthol rub for Poe's thirty-thousand aches and incipient arthritic spots and also lube and most importantly _Finn_ , minty and clean and fresh, and maybe (definitely) this is the kind of life he can hack, keep on with.

He's really fucking old to be finally figuring this out. He's so old that Finn can say, entirely sincerely, "I jacked off to your part in the Attack of the Clowns video every day when I was 13", the part that Poe shot when he was _25_ , older than Finn is now. He's old and he's never felt like he didn't have all the time in the world but now he's seeing maybe some limits to that spread of time, plus ways he'd prefer to spend that time. A dude he wouldn't mind spending it with.

Poe says it, doesn't entirely intend to, but doesn't regret it for a second, when Finn's about four pumps from coming, and his smile is the widest yet and he's saying Poe's name, grinding into Poe's palm and clutching at his back, and there isn't any other way to say this, nor any way to avoid it, nor does he even want to, so Poe says, I fucking love you, too,. This is the first time since he's said it to anyone and anywhere not his mom's gravestone. Finn's surging into him, at him, bearhugging and kissing him like he needs to taste the words and swallow them, _digest them_ , keep them.

Which is funny, because Poe's planning on saying it a lot more, every chance he gets, for as long as possible.


End file.
